Escaping the Shadows
by CheyWolfe
Summary: Alexander opens a portal, only to have it bring Soubi and Ritsuka into their world and also letting the shadow into the castle. While a memoryless Daniel wanders about the castle, Soubi attempts to find Ritsuka, who has become Alexander's plaything.


**Note: even if you haven't played Amnesia, I think I included enough information for you to get the most of it. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. I will explain the storyline if you want me to. Also, this takes place right before Daniel takes the Amnesia potion. It's sort of a what-if sort of thing. What if Alexander had opened a portal which caused the Shadow to get into the castle in the first place? What if that portal had been to the wrong world and it brought Soubi and Ritsuka into their world?  


* * *

One**

**Soubi**

Darkness. In the first few moments upon awakening, that was all that there was. Darkness. He was bound, he noticed immediately, and not in the way he might've liked. It was unnaturally dark, and it seemed to loom over him, sparking fear in the man who wasn't afraid of anything. A woman howled in the background, screaming about her child who had apparently been taken from her. The darkness was making the chained blonde man extremely uneasy and the panic was starting to set in, making him lose all of his rationality. He took deep breaths, trying to regain his falling sanity.

He was trapped, his right hand shackled to a wall and his body virtually paralyzed. The screaming was getting closer, the woman's words becoming a jumbled mess. Another voice joined hers, another very familiar voice that made the trapped man's eyes shoot open.

"Soubi!" Soubi awoke with a start, drenched in sweat, his heartbeat erratic. He bolted upright into a sitting position, nearly knocking Ritsuka off of him. The boy had been sitting on his chest, shaking him out of his horrifying nightmare. Soubi clutched his chest, feeling as though he couldn't get enough air, even though he was breathing hard.

"Are you okay?" Soubi turned his eyes to Ritsuka at hearing the younger's voice. The child had been knocked into his lap and was now looking up at him in worry. Soubi took his face in both hands, verifying that Ritsuka was indeed real and not another product of Soubi's imagination. He ran his hands down Ritsuka's sides, down to his hips before he finally felt satisfied that he wasn't dreaming still. Ritsuka didn't recoil, having grown used to Soubi's touch.

"I'm fine," Soubi told Ritsuka, hanging his head. He had been haunted by these nightmares for only a week or so, and he was already terrified of sleeping.

"No you aren't," Ritsuka clung onto him, surprising Soubi. "Go back to sleep." He urged Soubi into lying down, pushing him gently down by the shoulders.

Soubi stayed awake, though, even when Ritsuka curled up close to him. They were in Soubi's own apartment, tangled together in his large bed, the very same place where he took thirteen year-old Ritsuka's ears the night before. It was early morning and Soubi was still tired, since the last night had been very physically exhausting and since he hadn't slept much that week, anyways.

Sighing, Soubi let his eyes shut and he drifted off, trying to fill his mind with thoughts of Ritsuka.

**Daniel**

Daniel stared at his reflection in the mirror, seeing a man whom he did not recognize looking back at him. Daniel did not remember himself like this. This was not him. Alexander had turned him into a monster, molding him into a younger version of himself. Alexander, the insane owner of an eerie castle in Prussia, had lured Daniel into his trap, promising to keep the Shadows away from him. He had poisoned Daniel's mind to the point where the last torture session had given Daniel great joy. He was disgusted at himself, remembering how the sickly syrupy blood had flowed out of his victim and how Daniel had laughed during it.

He was a monster. There was no other way to describe it. He was worse than Alexander's servants, the ones that had gross deformations. He hadn't even washed the blood off of his face and hands before going to bed. And now here he was in the middle of the night, his face dirtied and his brown hair matted with dried blood. This was not what he wanted to be. The potion. He could take the potion. The amnesia potion.

He and Alexander gave the very same potion to the prisoners they tortured. Once they got used to the pain and stopped feeling it as much, Alexander said that the vitae would not be accessible. The vitae, he had explained, was the substance that leaked into the bloodstream when the subject got scared and hurt. Alexander and Daniel conducted rituals in order to install fear and pain into the prisoners of various crimes kept in the dungeons of Brennenburg Castle.

It was 1839 and Daniel had experienced more in just the past year than he had in his life. He was currently twenty-two years of age and had a Shadow chasing him. It was the guardian of the orb, something that had saved Daniel when he had been trapped in a tomb in Algeria. The orb had broken after Daniel touched it, leaving him with memories of towers, spiraling staircases, and impossible geometry. This Shadow that was chasing him consumed everything and everyone around him. Two people had already died because of it.

Daniel was at Brennenburg Castle because he had sent a letter pleading for help to Alexander, the baron of Brennenburg. Alexander was the most particular man Daniel had ever met. He seemed very old, yet he had the face and body of a young man. His mind was corrupted, as Daniel now knew, and filled with ages upon ages of knowledge.

Daniel shivered with the memory of late nights and Alexander, and he shook those thoughts from his head, going to the private bathroom to wash up. Alexander had screwed Daniel more times than he cared to remember, saying that it was to help Daniel sleep and that it'd keep the nightmares away. Daniel had seemed to have lost his mind when the rituals started, but he had never enjoyed having sex with Alexander. At least Daniel was in the right set of mind now.

As Daniel turned on the faucet water, waiting as the expensive pipes carried the water from the well to the sink, he thought again about how he had finally come to his senses just that afternoon. Alexander and he had gone into town and Daniel had captured and killed an innocent family of four—kids and all. He couldn't stand the guilt from it. He had killed _children_, for god's sake. That was unforgivable.

The water finally ran out of the faucet, just a few drops at first, and then it was pouring out. Daniel leaned down, cupping the water and bringing it to his face, scrubbing the blood off of his face and drenching his semi-long brown hair. He wanted to scrub the memory of the past months away, but no matter how hard he rubbed, he couldn't get it to go away.

"Daniel?" A voice called from down the hallway outside Daniel's exquisite room. Daniel had shut off the faucet and was drying his face, though he was frozen, now, not wanting to move. Alexander had heard the water moving through the pipes and had come to investigate. He was truly the last person Daniel wanted to see. "Are you still up at this hour?"

Quickly, Daniel made his way to the undone bed, climbing into it and blowing out the candle as he heard Alexander open the door. He left soon, to Daniel's relief, and the young man fell into a fitful sleep, knowing that he would have to drink the amnesia potion for this horrible aching to go away.

**Soubi**

Soubi stirred his coffee, waiting for Ritsuka to come back from the café's bathroom. The boy had been avoiding him since he woke Soubi up from the dream earlier. Soubi had no idea why. He was twenty-two now, and his boyfriend was only thirteen. Perhaps he was just embarrassed. Soubi continued stirring his coffee, lingering on that thought. He did love Ritsuka. He loved the child more than anything. It was true that he hadn't loved him at first, but Soubi soon fell in love with his beautiful, gentle Sacrifice. Of course, he had had to learn how to be the adult and dominant one in the relationship, but Soubi had eventually gotten used to it.

Soubi sat back, trying to relax. Last night had been special. Ritsuka had started crying when Soubi brought him back to his apartment, making Soubi extremely worried about him, as he hadn't been able to figure out what was wrong. Ritsuka finally told him it was because he was frustrated—frustrated at not being able to stand being without Soubi. He hadn't said it, but it was then that Soubi knew that Ritsuka was the first person to ever give the love that Soubi wanted so much.

He had made sure that Ritsuka truly wanted to lose his ears before starting anything. Ritsuka was the one to beg him in the first place. It had been a wonderful night, one that Soubi would never forget, not until the day he died. Ritsuka had seemed quite satisfied afterwards, too. But now there just seemed to be something eating away at him.

Soubi met Ritsuka's eyes as the boy walked out of the restroom, and he quickly looked away, blushing and only making his Fighter even more worried. Ritsuka silently took his seat across from Soubi, looking out the window they were sitting by. Soubi had bought Ritsuka a pair of natural-looking moving ears and tail so that he wouldn't be talked about or teased. Soubi had offered to take Ritsuka out after he showered, and Soubi decided to take him to the small café that had just opened. A book lay open on the table between them, Soubi's textbook for an advanced math class he took and had a test in on Monday.

"Is something wrong, Ritsuka?" Soubi asked, more interested in Ritsuka's troubles than he was in his horribly lengthy homework.

"I'm just afraid…" Ritsuka sated absentmindedly, still not looking at Soubi, but instead playing with Soubi's pencil and staring at the table.

Soubi leaned in, his anxiety sky-rocketing. He tilted Ritsuka's head up by his chin, looking into his eyes and finding the motion there unreadable. "Scared of what?"

"I…I've just heard stories," Ritsuka adverted his eyes, but only for a second. "Some girls at school lost their ears pretty recently, but their boyfriends left them afterwards. I don't know…It's just everything seems too perfect. I just have this feeling. You…you wouldn't leave me just because we…we did it, right?"

Soubi let his worries rest. Ritsuka was just worried about something he had heard at school, nothing more. They weren't a normal couple, but Ritsuka didn't really understand that quite yet. That was okay, though. There was time. Nothing was going to happen to them.

"I would never leave you, Ritsuka," Soubi told him slowly. "Never. I promise you. I know everything seems too good, but that doesn't mean something is going to happen to us. Everything is going to be okay, alright?"

Ritsuka suddenly grasped both of Soubi's hands, closing his eyes tightly for a moment before opening them and releasing Soubi, "Alright."

**Daniel**

"Come along, now, Daniel," Daniel snapped out of his trance as Alexander spoke to him. He nodded, descending down the stairs to join Alexander once again at the laboratory door. They were going to try once again to make something to destroy the fleshy substance that the Shadow brought with it. They had succeeded the previous day, but they were confirming the results now. Daniel, though, was preoccupied with thoughts of taking his own memory and what Alexander wanted with the Orb.

Alexander had taken Daniel's mended Orb, and Daniel assumed he would learn why very, very soon. Until then, he had to retain his memory, keep writing journals, and act like nothing was wrong.

**Soubi**

A week later, Soubi was happier than he had ever been in his life, with the exclusion of the nightmares. He could disregard those, though, because he always had a cuddly, comforting Ritsuka to wake up to. Ritsuka always woke him if he started yelling or trashing around, anyways.

He currently sat on the couch in his apartment with an overly-affectionate thirteen year-old in his lap, nuzzling his neck and kissing his bare chest. Soubi held a game controller in one hand, though he wasn't really paying attention to the screen anymore, not when Ritsuka was grinding him so wonderfully well and sucking on his collar bone.

This was what it felt like to be happy. He had someone who loved him more than anything. His art was getting featured in magazines and he was getting quite popular as an artist. He still took classes at the college, but most of them were not art-orientated. He realized, now, that Ritsuka would allow him to do whatever he wanted with his life, even if it meant he would have to go into some sort of office. Seimei had ordered against doing anything like that. With Seimei, Soubi really had no future. He had just been a vessel to be used. With Ritsuka, though, he was a person. He could feel, he could dream, he could wonder, he could really do anything he wanted to. Quite honestly, Soubi had never felt so damn alive and he loved every second of it.

**Daniel**

Alexander was going to try to open a portal to another world. He told Daniel of his plans the day that they went down to the laboratory. He said that the portal would allow them to go somewhere where the darkness would not haunt them. They needed the vitae from the prisoners in order to keep the Shadow from the Inner Sanctum and to harness and direct the power from the Orb to open the portal.

Daniel had to stop it. He realized that there couldn't just be one portal opened, but there had to be two. One on this side of the portal and one on the other side. If the experiment went wrong, there was no telling _what_ would happen. Alexander just didn't understand at all. He denied everything and Daniel knew that he was really doing this for his own personal gain.

This was going to be a disaster. Daniel could feel it.

* * *

**Please review. It's most likely that I will continue this, but not if people aren't reading. So, do review!**

**~Wolfie  
**


End file.
